Soviet Vega Probe Shows Space Savvy

March 9, 1986|Felicity Barringer, The New York Times

MOSCOW — With its successful Vega 1 mission through the heart of Halley`s comet last week, the Soviet Union demonstrated a space-age savvy that may prove as memorable as the scientific coup of taking the world`s first detailed look at an interplanetary traveler.

For starters, the scientists of Soviet Institute for Space Research revealed their strategy in international space research. They do what they are good at and get help with everything else.

The comet mission certainly played to one of the Soviet space program`s strong points: the manipulation of unmanned craft within the inner planets of the solar system. But the venture was complex and expensive - Roald Z. Sagdeyev, head of the Soviet institute, estimated the cost at $200 million - and the burden was spread among nearly a dozen countries, some producing the components that made the mission worthwhile.

France, West Germany, and Austria were involved. The United States helped track the craft`s approach, and an American scientist supplied a dust analyzer experiment.

The mission also handed the Russians an opportunity to make a point about the peaceful uses of space. When Vega 1 reached its closest approach to the comet, applause from the viewing room here was carried live on ABC-TV`s Nightline. Sagdeyev used the occasion to make pointed jokes about President Reagan`s proposed Strategic Defense Initiative.

Finally, the encounter with the comet took place amid a kind of scientific love-fest. Foreigners wandered freely through laboratories in one of the world`s most secretive countries and heaped praise on the Russians for their generosity with the data on the comet.

Indeed, Vega might be remembered as signaling the end of the era when space exploration could be viewed as a race between Americans and Russians. International tensions aside, this has given way in the last decade to a diverse competition with more players and more possible winning combinations.

In this setting, the Soviet Union, with its stolid incremental achievements and willingness to seek out partners, may have gained a tactical advantage. Right now the Russians are pushing to get back on schedule for a 1988 launching of an unmanned probe to Phobos, the innermost moon of Mars.

Like the Vega 1 spacecraft and its companion Vega 2, which is set to rendezvous with Halley`s comet on Sunday, the Phobos mission will also be a multinational effort, with Western contributions. Sagdeyev has his sights on Mars itself, perhaps even for a manned landing.

When asked about it, he demurs, saying, ``It would be very difficult, very expensive and very difficult to undertake such a mission.`` ``For us, alone, it would be unpractical,`` he added, aware that the Vega mission has shown that the Russians can lead a mission with many partners.

``Americans defined a very interesting system in the mid-1970s - a space station and a space shuttle that was supposed to go to the space station,`` said Roger-Maurice Bonnet, director of scientific programs for the European Space Agency. ``The space shuttle is a typical and necessary element of the space station complex. If you drop one part of it, you get something that is not necessarily completely coherent.``

HALLEY ENCOUNTERS

Here are status reports on the five probes studying Halley`s comet:

VEGA 1: The Soviet probe made the first encounter, flying within about 5,555 miles of the nucleus on Wednesday. The Vega 1 and 2 probes, which explored Venus last June, get their name from a contraction of the Russian words for Venus (Venera) and Halley (Gallei). Vega 1 was launched Dec. 15, 1984, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Soviet Kazakhstan.

SUISEI: The Japanese satellite flew within 89,500 miles of the comet on Saturday at 8 a.m. EST, sending back data on the corona of hydrogen atoms which surrounds the comet`s core of ice and dust. Suisei is Japanese for comet; the probe also is known as `Planet A.` It was launched Aug. 18 from Kagomisha Space Center on the Japanese island of Kyushu.

VEGA 2: The second Soviet probe willfly within about 4,986 miles of the nucleus early today. It was launched Dec. 21, 1984.

SAKIGAKE: The second Japanese satellite is scheduled to fly within about 4.3 million miles of the nucleus on Monday. Loosely translated, Sakigake means `Pioneer`; the probe also is known as MS-T5. It was launched Jan. 7, 1985.

GIOTTO: The European Space Agency probe is on a trajectory that would take it within about 565 miles of the nucleus on Thursday. However, a late trajectory change may change the distance and time, so the satellite might approach within 300 miles of the nucleus. Giotto is named after Florentine painter Giotto di Bondone, who apparently used a sighting of Halley`s comet in 1301 as a model for the Star of Bethlehem in his fresco Adoration of the Magi. Giotto was launched July 2 from the Centre Spatiale Guyanais near Kourou, French Guiana, in South America.